Last January, I wrote that Apple's forthcoming tablet computer – the iSlate, as many analysts incorrectly thought it would be called – would likely prove an unimpressive disappointment. Why, I wondered, were so many people excited about a small laptop without a keyboard? How much better it would be if Apple instead unveiled a Macintosh netbook that you could actually do some work on. A sample of my deathless prose:

"The problem is that the iSlate, rather than making our technological lives simpler, instead amounts to one more object – one more thing – that we have to lug around. It won't replace our smartphone. And the virtual keyboard ensures that it won't replace our laptop, either. Do we really need a third internet device to carry with us wherever we go?"

Well, these days, it takes every bit of willpower I possess to walk into my local Apple store for, say, a cable, and not walk out with an iPad I can't afford. I'm smitten. To critics like Cory Doctorow, who complain that the iPad is geared toward passive media consumption rather than creation, I say: yes. But it is the most amazing media-consumption machine I have encountered.

My radically changed opinion is based solely on stolen moments at the Apple store. But would Romeo have loved Juliet more if he'd been able to move in with her? For me, the iPad is sitting back in the living room with the TV on, my family around, the cat making his usual pest of himself – rather than hunching over my laptop at a desk, alone.

As you have no doubt heard, the iPad screen is super-sharp, and you can make the type bigger or smaller simply by spreading or pinching your fingers on the touch screen. Videos look astoundingly good. Much to my surprise, I have discovered that cloud programs I rely on every day – Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Reader – appear different, better and more useful, on an iPad. The virtual keyboard is a weak spot, but it's good enough for answering email.

Despite my new-found enthusiasm for the iPad as the ultimate media player, though, I continue to have reservations about some of the claims people make for it, as well as Apple's shameful control-freakery.

Some observers speculate that the iPad means the end of the web, with free sites giving way to paid apps. "The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet" proclaimed Wired magazine recently. And oh, by the way, Wired would like you to use its iPad app, through which you'll pay $3.99 an issue. Never mind(, as a commenter points out), that much of Wired's content is free at its website; it also costs just $10 to subscribe to 12 monthly issues of the print edition.

But perhaps the most vexing issue is Apple's corporate behaviour. With an old-school computer, you find stuff you want, you download it and you install it. With Apple's new generation of closed devices (the iPad, the iPhone and the iPod), though, you can only download software (apps) through Apple's iTunes Store. And if someone's app doesn't pass muster, well, you can't install it. Period.

Earlier this year, a political cartoonist named Mark Fiore made headlines when he revealed that Apple had banned his iPhone app because his work (cover the children's eyes) makes fun of public officials. Jobs and company backed down when Fiore won a Pulitzer prize.

Last week, though, Joshua Benton of the Nieman Journalism Lab reported that Apple's new app guidelines – meant to be less onerous – continue to ban harsh political satire if it is produced by amateurs. According to the guidelines, "Professional political satirists and humourists are exempt from the ban on offensive or mean-spirited commentary." That would be a repulsive example of censorious behaviour in any era; at a time when amateur content is rampant, it's unfathomable.

The larger problem isn't Apple's guidelines – it's that it has guidelines in the first place. Banning offensive content may be a smart business move, but it's incompatible with free speech. But no one should be surprised that a private corporation is more concerned about the bottom line than the free flow of information. That's why the media thinker Dan Gillmor has suggested that news organisations shouldn't do business with Apple.

The iPad won't be the last tablet computer. But given what we've seen with the iPod and the iPhone, Apple has an enormous headstart that may last years. So far, Apple has sold more than 3m iPads, and may sell another 28m in 2011.

Steve Jobs the creative genius has done it once again. Personally, I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out. One of these days, I'm going to whip out my credit card and put my reservations about Steve Jobs the evil genius on hold.